by CIA Omnigage | Apr 5, 2023 | Blog, Education, Multi-channel, Uncategorized
Do you strive to improve communication with students, faculty, and the community? Do you have a system to quickly and efficiently communicate detailed emergency information via a multi-faceted alert system?
With budgets and staff stretched thin, school districts, private schools, and public and private colleges nationwide are looking for ways to save money and increase communication efficiently. Schools need the ability to reach multiple audiences, including students, faculty members, and parents via phone, text, and email- in multiple languages to boot.
Do you have what you need to communicate quickly and efficiently at the touch of a button? Is your alert system flexible enough to differentiate sending alerts that are informative in nature, such as a weather notice or school event reminder, vs. those focused on saving lives, such as in a medical emergency or active shooter response? Let’s learn more about blast communications solutions for educational institutions.
Five Ways to Prepare for a School Emergency
Blast communications are a modern way to ensure critical messages reach their intended audiences quickly and with ease. But you need to prepare to be effective. Here are our top five recommendations for implementing a blast communications solution for educational institutions.
- Have a plan: Develop a clear plan for when and how to use blast messaging. Identify who will send the messages, what information will be included and how often updates will be provided. Use drills to practice your emergency response with all stakeholders so you know exactly how to proceed should an incident arise.
- Use simple language and provide specific direction: In a crisis situation, people need quick, precise, and specific information. Use simple, actionable language that gets right to the point. For example, instead of saying “evacuate the building”, say, “evacuate the building through the south exit and gather in the parking lot past the main gate.”
- Provide continuous updates: People want to know what’s happening and what they should do during a crisis. Provide regular updates via blast to keep everyone informed at every stage of the incident, including when it’s over.
- Use multiple communication channels: Blast messages can include: voice, SMS, and email, but don’t forget to update your social feeds so interested or affected external parties in the community can follow along.
- Test and retest your systems: Conduct regular tests to ensure your blast messaging system is working properly. Don’t wait for the emergency to arise before you test your systems; have a backup plan.
Schools Need CIA Omnigage’s Don’t Panic Button
Right now, many schools are implementing a blast communications solution from CIA Omnigage called the Don’t Panic Button. It can help educational institutions prepare for and launch critical messages with the touch of a button.
With applications for every school system level, CIA Omnigage’s flexible, robust solutions help solve common educational institutions’ communications challenges. The Don’t Panic Button can be implemented for uses such as:
- Public education, private schools, and higher education
- Emergency notifications for natural disasters, gun violence, medical incidents, and more.
- School closings, announcements, and reminders
- Grade attendance, and status reporting
- Fundraising, community outreach, and recruiting
- Student/parent/faculty engagement
The CIA Omnigage Don’t Panic Button places a device at teachers’ and faculty members’ fingertips that allows them to launch a multi-channel (voice, SMS, and email) message to a list of pre-uploaded contacts you define. The button alerts recipients to an emergency at the location with a simple click. Plus the device, launch three separate alerts different on a short, extended, or double click. These clicks can be programmed to respond with a notification of a school closure to something as serious as a tornado approaching or active shooter.
How Does the Don’t Panic Button Work?
Each CIA Omnigage Don’t Panic Button is programmed to send three different alert types based on the click- short, long, or double. Each alert type sends a specific message to a pre-configured list of recipients, allowing you to communicate reliably and securely with students, parents, and faculty via three channels- text messaging, blast voicemail, and email.
In fact, the Don’t Panic Button can be worn on a a lanyard around the neck of school staff, making it easy to access in the case of an unexpected event. There’s no need to even leave the classroom!
Today more than ever, educational institutions can use blast communications to keep students, staff, and faculty safe during emergencies. Don’t you owe it to your school and community to invest in the leading blast communications solution available for educational institutions? Consult with us today!
by CIA Omnigage | Mar 28, 2023 | Blog, Conference Calling, Uncategorized
Do you need help to host quality, professional, and stress-free conference calls? Are the logistics of hosting large conference calls with multiple presenters or advanced A/V needs preventing you from making the most impact? Trouble keeping track of live Q&A or audience feedback during your conference call? It sounds like you need a conference call service that can help you showcase your business in the best possible light while keeping host anxiety at bay.
Whether in the financial industry, technology, education, or any other industry, your hosted conference call service matters. But how do you evaluate a conference call provider, and what should you look for in a top notch hosted conference call service? Let’s take a look.
- Call Quality: A reliable conference call service should provide high-quality audio conferencing capabilities with minimal disruptions or dropped calls. In addition, attendees should be able to join from any device, anywhere in the world. It’s the first ingredient in our recipe for conference call success!
- Reliability: One of the most critical areas to explore with prospective conference call service providers is their reliability record. You should see solid uptime, minimal call drops or disruptions, and a stable network infrastructure that ensures all participants can easily connect.
- Security: Your conference calls often share detailed company information, including financials, corporate strategy, and customer data- information that’s too important risk on a mediocre conference calling service. Instead, look for a secure conference call service with robust security features such as end-to-end encryption, password protection, and two-factor authentication to protect your calls from unauthorized access. For an extra layer of security and convenience, the best conference call service providers typically offer separate codes for meeting managers versus participants.
- Ease of use: The conference call service should be user-friendly, with a simple interface that makes it easy for participants to join and manage calls, whether on desktop or mobile.
- Scalability: Is your business poised for growth? Your conference call provider should be too. Ensuring it’s scalable to meet your company’s needs today and in the future without sacrificing call quality or reliability is definitely on our list of what to look for in a conference call service.
- Integration: Do your employers work in silos, or is your company flush with collaboration masters? Similar to your people, your conference calling provider should integrate seamlessly with others, playing nicely with existing systems and tools such as your CRM, email, calendars, messaging apps, and more.
- Customer support: Having an incredible customer support with quick response times and knowledgeable operators who resolve issues isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. A customer support team should be easily accessible and exceptionally responsive. Your time matters, as does that of your audience, and nothing is worse than dead air on a live conference call.
- Cost: While you may not always get the cheapest solution, you should be prepared to pay a little more if you truly want a premium conference call service. With that, however, comes piece of mind. As long as your conference calling provider is transparent and provides the cost justification you need, you’re moving in the right direction. Some conference call providers may offer flexible pricing options to meet your organization’s budget and needs, which is clearly better than a one-size fits all approach.
- Special features: Features like virtual backgrounds, whiteboards, and chat/messaging add professionalism and collaboration abilities to your call. Virtual backgrounds make it comfortable to turn your video on no matter where you’re calling from, and whiteboards are a great way to share ideas visually and collaborative in real time. With chat/messaging features, participants can communicate with each other and the meeting host during the call without interrupting it.
Of course, there are certainly more features to explore with potential conference call providers, like recording and playback capabilities, as well as moderated Q&A sessions. We could go on. But it comes down to the conference calling provider’s experience so you’ll want to learn more about their customers and recent projects as well.
At CIA Omnigage, we enable customers to execute large conference calls and quarterly earnings release calls with ease. We’ll kick off your project with a pre-conference meeting to understand your needs, and our dedicated operator assisted conference call service is just the beginning of what we provide. Our turnkey, white-glove approach to conference call solutions means superior bandwidth, exceptional audio sound quality, content sharing, and slide presentations, hosted Q&As, event archiving, detailed participation logs, burstable capacity, and much more. Contact us today to learn more, and you’re well on your way to hosting a successful conference call.
by CIA Omnigage | Feb 28, 2023 | Blog, Communications, Multi-channel
When every second counts…
you can rely on the…
CIA Omnigage Emergency Alert Button for Broadcast Messaging
The CIA Omnigage Emergency Alert Button places a device at your finger tips that allows you to launch a multi-channel (Voice, Text & e-mail) message to a list of contacts you define to alert them to an emergency at your location with a click of a button. The device can be configured to launch three separate alert-types based on a short-click, long-click or double-click.
Please contact CIA Omnigage today to schedule a demo and receive more information on our latest emergency management communication technology.
by CIA Omnigage | Aug 3, 2022 | Blog, Communications, Multi-channel
When every second counts…
you can rely on the…
CIA Omnigage Emergency Alert Button for Broadcast Messaging
The CIA Omnigage Emergency Alert Button places a device at your finger tips that allows you to launch a multi-channel (Voice, Text & e-mail) message to a list of contacts you define to alert them to an emergency at your location with a click of a button. The button can be configured to launch three separate alert-types based on a short-click, long-click or double-click.
Please see a recent segment featured on News12 New Jersey regarding our latest technology designed to enhance school security and optimize incident response times:
Please contact CIA Omnigage today to schedule a demo and receive more information on our latest emergency management communication technology.
by CIA Omnigage | Mar 14, 2022 | Blog, Communications, Multi-channel, Omnigage
Doug discusses how the seamless integration of Tier1’s advanced CRM tools with CIA Omnigage enables users to streamline communications with their capital markets clients, increase efficiency and maximize the potential of their client interactions.
While traditional methods of communication still has an important role to play in capital markets, strategies are evolving and there is growing demand from market participants for advanced, customized engagement technology that satisfies regulatory compliance requirements.
Tools for an Effective Investment Banking and Capital Markets Communications Strategy
A robust CRM supported by multi-channel communication tools streamlines business processes and reinforces compliance protocols. Integrating these tools maximizes the functionality and value of each, and creates a streamlined communication environment in which sales, research, and trading desks can exchange ideas and work efficiently to ensure that all client deliverables are actioned promptly. This ultimately drives revenue-generating relationships.
Capital markets collaboration and partnership
Through Tier1’s longstanding partnership with CIA Omnigage, a specialist in communications technology for capital markets, we have created an environment that allows institutional banking and capital markets professionals to communicate seamlessly with their clients and each other.
Tier1’s flexible open architecture provides end-users with a single pane of glass view and integrates seamlessly with CIA, which simplifies visibility, enables client interactions to be tracked, delivers regulatory-compliance reporting, and allows research analysts and salespeople to get in front of clients easily.
This powerful combination of Tier1’s software and with CIA’s telephony, streamlines outreach to clients with templates to prescript voice messages and call reports whilst enabling an omni-channel platform supporting voice, email, and SMS, with robust insights into engagement statistics.
The integration of CIA Omnigage Click-to-Dial with Tier1’s core CRM solution not only creates a more collaborative ecosystem – it also increases productivity, saving users nearly 12 minutes for every 10 calls made, and a whole hour for every 50 calls. By the end of a full work week, this translates to almost an entire extra day of time saved that can be repurposed toward servicing clients and developing research. In fact, our advanced workflows on average deliver 20% + productivity with client engagement often leading to better revenue outcomes.
Deriving maximum value from your Outlook communications
Tier1’s Outlook + Plugin (TFO+) is an advanced integrated CRM email tool enhanced by CIA Omnigage. TFO+ bridges the gap between your email workflows and the CRM, enabling more effective and efficient communication, and tracking of mass email distribution to clients and prospects – obviating the need to spend hours on personalizing individual emails for blindly guess success metrics. By leveraging your CRM contact data, interest lists, and coverage combined with automation and workflow tools, TFO+ lets you target your research, ideas, and messages directly from Outlook – successfully.
CIA is SOC2-certified and has been engineered to meet critical regulatory guidelines, while Tier1 manages the increasing levels of relationship risk that exists between buy-side and self-side counterparties in an increasingly regulated financial landscape. As regulatory oversight expands, markets must become more automated, and communication methods become more sophisticated. It is therefore imperative that firms eliminate inefficiencies that may have a detrimental effect on client relationships.
After all, a robust multi-channel communication network may be the difference between a new relationship and a lost one.
For more information on the benefits of Tier1’s integration with CIA Omnigage provides for capital markets clients communications, contact us today.
